The Lady Hermes

My family started visiting Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida when Lizzy (seen in the photo below) was about three years old. Our hosts have been three of the sweetest guys you'll ever meet, the Jensen brothers, John, Dave and Jimmy, (John is absent from the picture for everyone needs a day off – right?) They run the Jensen's Twin Palm Cottages and Marina, which is where you can enjoy the Florida as it used to be and still should be.

When we first went to Sanibel and Captiva seeing an alligator was a rare event. In fact, they were an endangered species. This made me sad, not because they are cute and cuddly, but maybe because I was born and raised in the Deep South, swamp water may run in my veins.  Who knows? But I started researching the plight of alligators, and noticed that over the years, they seemed far more plentiful in our part of Florida. The conservation measures that had been enforced over the years had worked. 

I hope my friend and fellow illustrator Carolyn Croll (illustrator of SWEET POTATO PIE, which I wrote,) will read this.  She’ll understand why it makes me think of her and send her good wishes.

A few nights ago I went to an art opening at our newly renovated Byram Schubert Library, which has a spacious and beautiful gallery.  The show was huge, and the artist being honored was my middle child, Lizzy Rockwell, who is an illustrator.  There were plenty of visitors, framed pictures everywhere, good nibbles, old friends, and it was a festive evening.  So if you happen to be in the neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut, head for this wonderful branch library and check the show out.

Lizzy, as her father was, is a wonderful naturalist-artist.  When I saw the images I’ve posted here, I was taken back many years into her childhood.

She was not quite three years old, and her sister, Hannah, was almost six.  We were spending the month of August on Block Island to escape the heat and smog of New York City.  At that time, Block Island wasn’t the trendy neo-Hamptons place it has become.  But it was on the main flyway for migrating birds, and apparently Monarch butterflies too.

Picture books for children take a long time to go from idea to object. When I wrote "Why Are the Ice Caps Melting? The Dangers of Global Warming" five or six years ago being “Green” was not the big subject it is today. But by the time the book came out former Vice-President Al Gore had written "An Inconvenient Truth," and won an Oscar for the documentary film of the subject. Leonardo di Caprio had (I believe) 6 Prius cars in his garage. Hollywood had spoken. Green was good.

I was surprised that this modest little book, published by HarperCollins as part of its LET’S READ AND FIND OUT science series, and cheerfully illustrated by Paul Meisel, gathered the attention it did, although I guess I shouldn’t have been. A reporter from The Washington Post interviewed me and asked if I didn’t feel concerned about how I was frightening children by writing a book about global warming. The Wall Street Journal (which rarely reviews children’s books) wrote a long and vitriolic review of the book, with a similar caveat.